Getting Smarter, Playing it Safer?

Yet another week of trying to be smart about my running and I think the approach, for the most part, seems to be working. A couple of weeks ago, as noted, I took one run "off" and got on the stationary bike instead for a 40 minute spin. Last week I decided another test was in order and on Tuesday hit the treadmill for a speed session. The idea was to see if I would be able to run four repeats of 800m in 2:52 or 2:55 with 2 minutes rest interval. These goals correspond to the Run Less Run Faster paces for either the 3:10 marathon or 3:15 marathon, in order words my "A" BQ and "B" BQ paces.

Anyway, it was a very tough workout, but I made it! There is an asterisk to the session as I took one extra minute of rest prior to starting into the last repeat, but not on account of the heart rate (which duly came down to 130bpm within 90 seconds each time), but simply because I was overheating as the gym had the worst stale air ever; absolutely nothing moving around in there at all and warm, warm, warm...

Long story short, the test was passed. But afterwards, maybe an hour or so later, I started to feel a pain on the top and outside of my right foot. This was not debilitating, but definitely worrisome. It was marginally better by Thursday, when I was to hit the gym for another run, but I decided to play it smart and safe and so it was back onto the stationary bike for another 40 minutes. I alternated one minute hard, one minute easy after a 5 minute warm up, and finished it off with a 5 minute cool down. It was a good workout, even if it wasn't running.

And so, as this past weekend came up, my foot was feeling better. However, coaching my little basketball team at the provincial championships had me focused elsewhere and a bit more than busy. Therefore, I decided to not run at all on Saturday. I woke up thinking I would get out there for an easy 4km, but the temperature had plummeted and it didn't seem like it was worth my time so I gave the foot one more day of rest. On Sunday afternoon, after coming home from the tournament, I hit the road for a general aerobic run where I managed a decent 10km in 50 minutes or so at an average pace of 5:02/km. My diet had been less than good over the weekend and this effort felt a loss worse than it should have, but I was happy that the foot was feeling 100%!

Today I hit the gym again at lunch and got on the treadmill for another general aerobic effort. I felt well enough after the first kilometre that I decided to do some faster sections, but not too fast. I alternated  1 minute at about 4:14/km with 2 minutes at about 4:52/km until I had run 9km total, then put in one more kilometre easy for a cool down. The total was 10km in 47:05 for a 4:43/km average pace. This was so much easier than my Sunday run and I am convinced that my diet affects me very clearly when training so I guess I'd better be good ;)

Anyway, things are going well. Another test is coming up on the training plan so we will see how I manage that. But for now it's play it smart, play if safe, and run healthy. I hope...

One of The Rough Ones...

It's the rough outings that make one stronger, right? Well, I sure hope that's true as the weekend found me struggling mighty hard to finish my long run. After a few days where my stomach just felt off, and where I couldn't really eat much as a result, I ventured out on a damp Saturday morning to try and get in my long run for the week not exactly in high spirits.

The prospect of a long run was daunting enough, and I had visions of another "test" run. The idea was to run 24km at 5:06/km pace. This should have been totally achievable on any given day, but on this day it proved to be nothing but a pipe dream. Within the first kilometre I realized that simply making through some reasonable distance was going to have to satisfy. As the distance indicator on the Garmin moved at an agonizingly slow rate, and my energy levels sagged from crap to shit bucket territory, I even considered turning around at 5km and heading home. My calves still felt tight (I did end up switching up my Tuesday run for a 40 minute spin on account of that ailment) and my stomach was no cooperating too well. More than anything, I felt like I had absolutely nothing left and I was running slow!

Anyway, I did slog on and decided that a decent turnaround point was 10km. I was not going to be doing myself any good to try to go for the aforementioned 24km. On the way back I stopped more than a few times to try and mentally force myself to continue. It was probably the worst long run since the one that lead to my unfortunate abdominal injury and subsequent year-long layoff back in June of 2011. At least this time I don't think I've suffered any debilitating injuries... The 20km took me 1:44:14 for a fairly pathetic average pace of 5:13/km (though I recognize that in years past I would have been thrilled with this pace and distance so it's all relative).

The next day I managed a much more normal 4km recovery run, with 1km walks bookending it as a warm up and cool down thing, at nearly the same pace and, having had a decent meal finally the night before, I felt much better.

Doing Some Math

This weekend ended up being another "test" of my ability to potentially train for a BQ type pace over the Summer. The goal was to run 21km at 4:58/km. When starting up I had visions of trying the same distance, but at 4:49/km. However, as this was my first run outside since February 1st I reserved the right to change things up while on the go. Indeed, it became very clear that it would be unrealistic for me to average 4:49/km after a first kilometre that took 5:02, even if I could have pushed it, so I decided to simply try for the 4:58/km average.

Long story short, I did complete the distance in 1:42:48, which translated to an average pace of 4:54/km. Test passed! The next day I ran an easy 4km recovery jog with my son, and today I am still feeling the effects of the weekend in the calves... Might have to stay off the planned run tomorrow and simply do some spinning. Oh well.

All that being said, today I had a closer look at my cadence metrics for the past few longer runs. Although I am not averaging the desired 180spm that so many resources tell us we should be striving for, I am pretty close and tend to average either 176spm or 178spm. This is MUCH better than a while back when I was barely hitting 170spm, so it's progress...

But something else jumped out at me while looking at these metrics. The cadence is just one of two important factors that determine performance, the other being stride length. It would seem that even if I did achieve 180spm, which has been my focus for some time now, I may still not be able to hit my desired pace to qualify for Boston if my stride length is not long enough! I quickly crunched some numbers and at a cadence of 180spm my stride length would have to be 1.234m in order to achieve a 3hr10m BQ time.

The math to achieve a 3hr10m marathon time looks like this for a few cadence options:

(178 steps/minute = 33,820 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 33,820 steps = 1.248m/step)

(180 steps/minute = 34,200 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 34,200 steps = 1.234m/step)

(182 steps/minute = 34,580 steps in 3hr10m; 42,195m divided by 34,580 steps = 1.220m/step)

Well, it seems that only once in my recent runs have a hit this stride length, while every other time it rests somewhere in the 1.12m/stride to 1.16m/stride range. The one time I did manage (without being aware of any of the above calculations) I averaged 178spm and my average pace was 4:34/km. That would not get me my BQ sadly, but would translate to a marathon time under 3hr15m, so that's pretty good. On another effort where I DID average 180spm my stride length was 1.20m, which translated to an average pace of 4:39/km. In other words, still too slow.

Therefore, it has become apparent to me that I need to work on my stride length and not only my turnover rate. Seems, upon cursory checking, that the only way to achieve this is to practice things like sprinting (guess they call them "strides" for a reason), improve glute strength, all the while maintaining a good turnover.

It's good to have goals...

PS: At an average stride length of 1.16m (which seems to be a reasonable number to represent my "regular" stride length), and a 180spm cadence the result would be a 3hr22m marathon. Things clearly need to change in this aspect, as well as many others no doubt...

First Test

The first test of what will hopefully be a series of attempts to ascertain what type of training paces I will be trying to hit on training runs as I prepare for a Fall Marathon occurred today. Alas, it was on a treadmill, but nevertheless, at least it WAS...

The goal is to follow the Run Less Run Faster plan for setting up test training sessions and base these on the A goal of a 3:10 marathon finish. I figure that if I can manage a good number of test runs, of all three "Key Run" varieties, and then analyze the paces that I was able to accomplish over the course of these attempts it will allow me to better prepare a proper pacing strategy for training and racing.

As such, today was one such test. The plan called for a 9km run, split into 3km easy, 3km at Short Tempo pace, and 3km easy. Based on a 3:10 marathon finish the Short Tempo pace is 4:04/km. Easy pace is 5:04/km...

The first 3km was, as planned, easy. Given that I was on a treadmill the pace didn't vary all that much as the Garmin foot pod read out splits of 5:06, 5:01, 5:00. Then it was straight into the Short Tempo section so I pushed the treadmill up to what I thought would be the right setting, 9.1mph, only to find that the foot pod indicated that my actual pace was 3:57/km. Yikes! Dropped it to 9.0mph, but that was still too quick, so settled on 8.9mph. That lead to a first kilometre in 4:00.3, and then splits of 4:01.4, and 4:02.9. Mission accomplished! It wasn't easy, but it wasn't deadly either. Guess I could have paced it closer to the intended 4:04/km, but am still pleased with how close this was to that target.

Finished the run with 3km once more at the easy pace and it was all done. Nice to have managed to pass this test!

Details

Building on the concepts of the last post I thought it worthwhile to note my thoughts on the "how" or my new running philosophy/practice. Having recognized in finer detail the wonkishness of my being, which has lead to so many frustrating injury enforced lay offs in my running, I have become rather methodical in my preparation. Well, I suppose the training plans I've designed in the past have also been very detailed, but they tended to work against me in that I would be tied to the plan so strongly that my attempts to keep to the schedule were at times counterproductive.

So, with this in mind, I have constructed a plan of sorts that is leading me towards a Fall marathon. It is simple, yet challenging:

• Tuesdays: Run 8-10km with a purpose
• Thursdays: Run 8-10km with a different purpose than Tuesday (unless it is a recovery week)
• Saturdays & Sundays: Long Run with a purpose on one day, short and slow recovery run on the other

The "purpose" is the key. For instance, I am trying to get faster so that I can make a solid attempt at the BQ at some point. Therefore, I no longer believe it is worthwhile to simply slog through slow miles and reinforce the habit of running slowly. Instead, I prefer to include variety in my training and have a bunch of choices at my disposal:

1. General Aerobic (the bread and butter run, which for me fits in the 4:45-5:09/km pace)
2. Easy (a slow General Aerobic run)
3. LSD (self explanatory, but always with a goal pace between BQ and 5:06/km)
4. Tempo/Tempo Intervals (distances vary with Short Temp pace at 4:04/km, Mid Tempo pace at 4:14/km, and Long Tempo pace at 4:23/km)
5. Speed/Track Repeats (200m up to 1600m intervals at various paces based on distance, but quick for me at 3:30/km to 3:47/km)
6. Fartlek (basically a General Aerobic run with pick ups here and there)
7. Hills (basicall a General Aerobic run while seeking out a decent hill for a few repeats)
8. Recovery (short distance at slower than 5:23/km pace)

Depending on how things go I reserve the right to run some trails and do other fun variations, but largely I will be choosing a specific goal for every run according to how I am feeling and/or where I am in my training.

More importantly, by giving myself the above structure I am forcing upon my training off days. Also, I am planning on a two weeks up, one week down approach to keep my body healthy. The down weeks will be very much low mileage and will serve to allow my body to properly recover from the tougher efforts that, if I am not careful, will definitely result in injury.

Added to the running component I will continue to strength train, but cut it down from 5 days/week to 3 days/week. I will also continue to bike to and from work and will now consider this 'cross-training', even if I will not keep any stats on how fast, far, or for how long. I do this ride every day and my effort varies. All told, it will serve the cross training purpose that most lower mileage training plans call for...

Moving Forward, Learning from the Past

As I attempt to go after the ultimate goal in this running thing (the almighty BQ) it's become apparent to me that this journey has already taken much longer than I ever thought it would. I first became aware of the whole BQ and Boston Marathon thing about six years ago and it didn't take long for me to set my sights upon this goal. And yet here I am still struggling through injuries and running much too slow to make such a lofty achievement ultimately "realistic".

As such, I have been resigned to two very important lessons learned:

1. I cannot handle daily running no matter how much I would like to think that I can muscle my way through it.
2. I have trained much too slow and, in periods of relative health, all that I've become adept at is running slow.

Therefore, two changes to my running philosophy/practice must necessarily accompany the above epiphanies.

1. I must take days off and likely will top out at four running days per week.
2. I must practice running fast enough to make BQ pace feel easy.

So that's what I've been doing since the start of the year. I have moved from three days per week to four days per week of running, and I'm gently pushing the pace by varying the types of runs that I do in an effort to make BQ something that my body can manage for a little over three hours on race day.

Nothing to report other than that, which in and of itself is likely a lesson I should have learned years ago. I am certainly hoping that my plan leads to success and, more to the point, success in much less time than it's taken me to absorb these lessons...

That being said, I do enjoy the act of running and want to enjoy it for its own sake for years to come. But at this point I am not willing or able to enjoy the act of running absent a worthy goal. The two go together in my mind, though I recognize that at some point in my life I will have to either achieve the philosophy expressed in this article, or find another pursuit. I do agree with the author, however, about running still being "the best part of my day."